IR professionals explain what makes a great roadshow destination
This article was produced in association with ELITE Connect. It was originally published on the ELITE Connect platform
Results from the latest IR Magazine survey show that New York is once again the most-visited city worldwide when it comes to popular roadshow destinations ‒ but will this still be the case for 2017? We take a look at the results in 2016’s report, and gain some industry insight into the factors that could influence how 2017’s roadshow activity may play out.
Released last week, the IR Magazine Global Roadshow Report 2016, showsthe top 10 destinations visited globally in 2016 as:
- New York
- London
- Boston
- Chicago
- San Francisco
- Frankfurt
- Paris
- Toronto
- Los Angeles
- Edinburgh
The report sees a change in the city ranked number two in the list, with London overtaking Boston. Speaking of the UK’s capital city as his preferred destination, and one to keep watching in 2017, Miguel Viana, head of IR at Energias de Portugal, comments: ‘London is my favorite destination because it has all the advantages of being the hub for European capital markets: you can meet key buy-side analysts and portfolio managers (even from institutions based in the US or Asia) or sell-side analysts and sales representatives. You can also connect with either equity or fixed income contacts very easily.’
So what are the ideal criteria for roadshow success in 2017? Viana points to proximity as a key influencer. ‘An ideal roadshow destination is not too far away and somewhere you can meet investors that have know-how of the business environment of your company,’ he explains. ‘It has to be a location you can commit to travel to at least once a year in order to provide relationship maintenance, and somewhere that, ideally, you can find five or six long-term investors to fill a full day of meetings.’
For Daniel Fard-Yazdani, co-head of investor relations at Axel Springer, the real roadshow destinations to watch will be those that companies’ investor targeting highlights as relevant to them. ‘There are the obvious ones ‒ London, New York, and so on ‒ but even then, the real answer depends on your shareholder base and any analysis you have hopefully done on that as well as on investor targeting,’ he notes. ‘The results of these will give you your own list of ideal locations very quickly.’
When it comes to roadshows and management involvement, the IR Magazine Global Roadshow Report 2016 highlights an increase in IROs taking the lead at roadshows while their senior management stays at home, with IROs attending an average 2.4 roadshows on their own in 2016, compared with 1.9 in 2015. This trend has the potential to continue into 2017, according to Viana.
‘Most investors (and brokers) want to have meetings with management, but if you have a good IR team that is well prepared to answer the usual questions, it is more efficient to use them and save management time and resources,’ he advises.
He adds, however, that there are times when management time is crucial to the success of the process: ‘IR departments should focus and prioritize management time for meetings with shareholders, significant-sized funds with deep know-how of the sector/company or particularly relevant hedge funds.’
